My guitarist Jason and I agree on many things and equally disagree on many things. For instance, he thinks we – our old band – should only publish music when we are totally ready. The recording has to be close to perfection. So we kept on practicing until the band went into hiatus. And we have published nothing.
Jason is not wrong to think of the long term goal. But how does it matter when we don’t even give it a shot and see how it goes? So recently, I have published two songs I have written in 2020 on YouTube. They are My Princess and Waiting (the latter should be renamed to Waiting 2020 because I have written a song with the same title back in 2000). The recording is far from perfect. But rather than to concern about a future that I don’t even know what it will be, I am living in the moment. In fact, I am pretty happy that I have done that and keen to see where this will go, even if it is going nowhere. There may not have a future. But all I have is now.
Jason and I do agree that recording music professionally is a painful process. We both prefer live jamming. Because when a song is being recorded with the intent to publish, it is made permanent. You have to get each track right and it can restrictive. Live jamming though, is a different experience.
You get to go with the flow relying on the chemistry of the musicians. You can break all the rules. That guitar solo is supposed to be 8 bars? Why not extend it on the fly and see how it goes? I would be feeding Jason with the chords and different strumming patterns that got intensified as the guitar solo soared. We did not have to preset the duration. We just go with the feel. Jason would go all high on his guitar solo. I would strum my guitar and at times, do vocal ad-lib. We improvised. We fed onto each other’s energy. We did not know where the song would be heading. But each live jamming was a unique experience.
Truth be told, we did record our live jamming and the majority are not that good (best for private consumption). But occasionally, there is some really good music created in the most unexpected way.
I would describe that to be our magical moment, made possible when we break all the rules, improvise, go with the flow, and live in the moment.